Page 12 of The King of Halloween
Taking the staircase, Raj inspected the fake candles flickering in tree branch sconces gnarled to mimic human hands. Two of them were out. “I’ll have to fix that,” he said. At least the busts in the wall worked—their faces following him as he climbed. It was the old inverted illusion that worked better than anything mechanized. Up above, he was able to stare down and see his Pepper’s ghost effect. To those daring enough to ascend, if they glanced back at the chandelier, they’d find a ghost gleefully swinging back and forth on top of the fragile glass. Hidden in an alcove in the ceiling was a smaller animatronic with a light and a mirror.
He’d nicknamed the ghost Happy Harry. They were still working on the backstory, though the idea of a man getting drunk and celebrating New Year’s on a rickety chandelier was his favorite. Maybe they could put a hat on his head and champagne glass in his hand. Raj patted his breast pocket before he pulled out his notebook to jot the idea down.
By the time he’d gotten to changing out Harry’s hats for the holidays, the contractor paused in front of their best and most haunted suite. Instead of the bed being made up and ready for guests, the mattress sat by the window that projected a spooky graveyard outside. Two men sat in the slats of the frame, both fighting with the metal bars on their special mechanism.
“We fixed this. Tested it for up to four hundred pounds.”
“Yeah. It works great for a mess of people,” the contractor said, then he nodded to the two men. They rose from their work and slid the mattress into place. “Problem is if you only have one person in this room…” He hefted up their test skeleton and tossed it onto the bed, then nodded to a man.
The switch flipped. At first, a haunting blue light glowed under the bed. Then the bottom right corner kicked up. The skeleton fell a bit forward, just for the top left corner to leap up.
Oh.It hit Raj as the skeleton started to bounce like a popcorn kernel on a hot pan. The mechanism entered its final haunting stage, and the bed began to buck wildly. In their tests with two burly men pretending to be a married couple, they’d get a good shake to mimic a haunting. But with just the five-foot plastic skeleton, the bed went from curious ghost to full-on exorcism.
The skeleton flailed so wildly that one of its legs tore off. The limb flew back, striking the painting behind the bed. Then the rest of the poor remains jiggled to the edge until they landed against the headboard. Which was when the entire top half of the bed leaped up.
“Ah!” Raj ducked as twenty pounds of skeleton hit the wall across from them.
“Kill it,” the contractor said.
“So we lower the pressure. Or make it so only couples can stay in the suite.”
“And hope they ain’t fighting or else one of ‘em’s not walking out of here,” the man by the switch said with a laugh.
“There’s also the concern of children,” his contractor said.
“Oh, no kids. It’s not safe.” While invisible children laughing in the walls was creepy, actual ones banging on the ceiling and floors was not.
The contractor hefted the skeleton off the floor. As he grabbed onto its spine, the head tumbled back, then fell off. Raj grimaced and rubbed his face. “Cut the pneumatics down to two hundred PSI.”
“Okay, but then the bed won’t do the bucking thing at the end.”
God, that was his epic finale. No. Better to keep things safe and avoid potential broken noses than get that final oomph for people. “It’s fine. And don’t forget…”
“Yeah. We’ll lock it all up so no one can mess with it,” the contractor said.
As Raj watched them work, the back of his neck started to burn. “Are you going to have to do this for all the beds?”
“Yup.”
He had to ask the question he dreaded most in the world. “How long will that take?”
“Well…”
“There you are, partner!” Their answer was covered over by the enthusiastic shout of Logan. He swung back into the bedroom, then slapped Raj on the back before staring down at the men. “Doing a bang-up job. The place looks incredible.”
Literal wires were hanging from the ceiling for both the hidden words that’d appear in the wallpaper and the overhead lights. It was uninhabitable, and they had clients arriving in less than a week. Exasperated, Raj turned to glare at Logan. “Is it?”
“Sure. Well, good enough. I mean, we’re getting there, man. Don’t worry so much. You’ll get an ulcer.”
An ulcer was better than going three hundred thousand dollars into debt.Why did I think this was a good idea? I’m going to lose it all, and the only thing I’ll have to show for it is a butler that slaps me.
“Hey, it’s Tuesday.” Logan managed to grip onto Raj’s shoulders and pull him out of the room.
“Yes, I know. And we’re soft opening on Saturday, remember?”
“Yeah, yeah. But shouldn’t you be going?”
Going where?He had the bedrooms to finish. The animatronics to test. There was a mysterious drip in the basement that no one could figure out. Oh, and all the scare actors to teach how to do their makeup. Raj accepted he wouldn’t get a day off for ten years the moment his plane landed to a thousand new text messages.
